


To Leeward, Homeward

by mooshlam



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Epilogue, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-07
Updated: 2018-03-07
Packaged: 2019-03-28 01:19:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13893210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mooshlam/pseuds/mooshlam
Summary: Post-Star Trek Into Darkness and Post-"Interred in the Bone"Carol took his apology and lived her life, but she always wondered if he was still waiting like he promised.





	To Leeward, Homeward

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AprilFeldspar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AprilFeldspar/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Interred in the Bone](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1302550) by [AprilFeldspar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AprilFeldspar/pseuds/AprilFeldspar). 



> This is a little piece I wrote a long time ago, but never published. This is a gift to AprilFeldspar, an epilogue I wrote for her beautiful story “Interred in the Bone.” 
> 
> All the characterizations belong to J.J. Abrams, the Star Trek Universe, and AprilFeldspar

 

 

 

 

_So call the field to rest, and let’s away._

_To part the glories of this happy day_.

(William Shakespeare, _Julius Caesar_ )

 

* * *

The control room was quiet except for the soft hum of the engines and the occasional beep from the outboard monitor.  She was alone. After locking up her house and throwing the keys in the trash bin, she had hopped on a ship from her home on Archer IV to the nearest planet in the 61 Ursae Majoris system, Kzin, where she met up with an Orion to acquire a ship, one that was out of commission and off the record—where she was going she did not want anyone to follow.  

 

The ship was a old Denobulan one; the sentimentality of choosing such a ship was not lost on her, plus it was quite spacious for only her on board.  Before purchasing it she had scanned both the physical ship itself and its computing mainframe to ensure that there was nothing recording or tracking the ships movements.  After assessing its basic invisibility, she paid the Orion with the a some Terran spices and a few Spican flame gems. He was hesitant to accept it, pointing animatedly at her hair.  She pushed it behind her ear and shook her head, pressing the items into his hands and swiftly turning on her heel. The effect would have been more dramatic, but then again, age has wearied her bones and slowed her movements.  

 

Walking up to the panel she keyed in a destination in the panel, the Badlands, and set the ship to warp, this wasn’t to be her final destination, just a place from which she could be undetected.  One would think that after all these years this area separating the Cardassian Union and Federation Space would have been mapped and taken over, as seemingly everything was. But instead, it had remained uncharted, unclaimed, and unwatched.  It seemed that the tension between the these two groups was too much for reconciliation. But that worked in her favor.

 

Carol set the ship on autopilot and walked over to the sleeping quarters.  She had time to kill and age had made sleep a more constant companion. Closing her eyes, she let sleep wash over her as the ship hummed on.  

 

* * *

 

 

Life finds a way, it truly does.  And the years flew by so quickly.

 

After her release from psychiatric care, Carol reentered the world tired and weary.  She knew life had to continue, but the meaning, surety, and direction she had always had were gone.  Those first few years were difficult, bordering on unmanageable. There were times when it seemed impossible to go on, but she couldn’t throw her life away.  Then one day she ran into Jim Kirk. His invitation to dinner and easy smile was a balm for the sadness she felt. And she knew that he wanted them to be something, but his idealism and faith in Starfleet was too much for her to handle.  They parted on friendly terms, she claiming a need to focus on her work to spare his feelings. She thinks he knew that this wasn’t entirely true, but he was cordial about it and even introduced her to what would be her future husband. The connection was simple, the romance was easy, and David was everything that she should have wanted but did not deserve.  His marriage proposal caught her off guard, but was accepted. Their relationship was comfortable. He was safe and warm and she loved him for that. He understood when to give her space and was willing to deal with the pains of her past. He did not treat her as damaged goods, but also did not expect her to always be okay. When they had first started going out he had inquired to a couple of her scars, like her nightmares and the mark on her neck, but she was quick to shut him down and he let her scars be.  And time slipped away. Her thoughts drew less and less to my past and more and more to the present.

 

Together they had a beautiful daughter, Khatun, who raced through school to join Starfleet in an idealistic pique, just like she had.  Carol couldn’t blame her, not really. And she liked to think, hope that the Starfleet of today was different. But it was difficult. It made her feel like her own mother, and just like her mother, she supported her daughter in whatever way she could.  

 

In the end, the world worked out for Carol, but now, that was all gone.  

David died of age about five years back and Khatun had followed eerily close to Carol’s footsteps.    

 

Khatun set out on a twenty year space mission taking her entire family with her both daughters and husband—mid-level analyst, communications officer, engineer, and a weapons specialist—and they said their goodbyes.  Khatun had invited her along, as a guest, but Carol begged the suggestion off, pointing out that Carol would have just become a body they would need to mourned on the trek. But the true reason was that even though she could let her daughter, she herself could not put herself in the hands of Starfleet and the shadowy grasp of Section 31.  And these missions had become progressively longer and longer. Carol’s aborted five year mission all but a little leap today. She was not naive enough to think that she will still be around when Khatun and her family returned. The medicine has gotten better, but bones still break, bodies still age, and some frailty cannot be removed.

 

 

* * *

 

A quiet beeping sound roused her from her slumber.  She threw on a simple shift and slowly made her way down the hallway.  Tension filled her body. She tried to clamp it down and put a hold on it, because what she wanted was too far out of the realm of possibility, too distant to truly have any basis in reality.  If anything, were it to fall through, her mission was tantamount to suicide. But then again, she had already said her goodbyes. Her body was old and her family was gone. Life was moving on without her anyways.  

 

She made it back to the control room and walked up to the console.  Punching in the subspace frequencies from the Xandi ship she could never forgot, she waited anxiously.  There was no reason for him to have kept the line open, risking exposure and potential backlash and maybe even suspicion from his people.  

 

Hesitantly she murmur into the mic, “Hello?”  

 

Silence.  

 

It was stupid.  After everything he had gone through to protect his family and the life she had thrown away to protect them, it was foolish.  Not to mention, the age of the ship. Antiquated at the time, she was positive it would have needed repairs, and the effort required to do so was prohibitively expensive.  Carol drew a deep, shuddering breath. It was ridiculous notion to come here. But a small part of her had hoped, hoped that those last words he had uttered to her were not a lie.   As she turned to leave there was a click and a soft hum. Breathlessly she spoke, “A fair wind that will drive me towards home. Yonder, to windward, all is blackness of doom but to leeward, homeward—I see it lightens up there; but not without the lightning.”

 

A beat passed, and then his voice, unchanged by seven odd decades, “Carol…”


End file.
